Ezra Chapter 6

“Then Darius the king made a decree, etc.] To make inquiry after the edict of Cyrus, to search the public records for it: and search was made in the house of the rolls; or “books” f52, in a public library or museum: where the treasures were laid up in Babylon; where things of worth and value were reposited; not only gold, silver, jewels, and precious stones, and things rare and curious, but all sorts of writings relating to the monarchy, and the dominions belonging to it; but it seems it could not be found here, and therefore the king ordered search to be made elsewhere.”

“DARIUS' DECREE FOR ADVANCING THE BUILDING. (Ezr 6:1-12) Darius the king--This was Darius Hystaspes. Great and interesting light has been thrown on the history of this monarch and the transaction of his reign, by the decipherment of the cuneatic inscriptions on the rocks at Behistun. in the house of the rolls, where the treasures were laid up in Babylon--An idea of the form of this Babylonian register house, as well as the manner of preserving public records within its repositories, can be obtained from the discoveries at Nineveh. Two small chambers were discovered in the palace of Koyunjik, which, from the…”

“A “house of the rolls” was discovered at Koyunjik, the ancient Nineveh, in 1850 - a set of chambers, i. e., in the palace devoted exclusively to the storing of public documents. These were in baked clay, and covered the floor to the depth of more than a foot. Such a “house” was probably that at Babylon. return to 'Top of Page'”

“A decree - To search the rolls in Babylon, where search was first made; but not finding the edict there, they searched in Achmetha, or Ecbatana, and found it. Ezra 6:2”

“6:2 The fortress at Ecbatana, the king’s summer home, was located about 300 miles northeast of Babylon. This suggests that Cyrus wrote the scroll in the summer of 538 BC. • Media was a mountainous area north of Persia and east of Assyria. This area is now inhabited by the Kurds (descendants of the Medes). • Texts introduced by the term Memorandum tended to be summaries that listed the main facts of an event for the royal archives (cp. 1:9-10).”

“and search: Ezr 4:15, Ezr 4:19, Ezr 5:17; Job 29:16; Pro 25:2 rolls: Chal, books, Psa 40:7; Jer 36:2-4, Jer 36:20-23, Jer 36:29, Jer 36:32; Eze 2:9, Eze 3:1; Rev 5:1 laid up: Chal, made to descend Ezra 6:2”

“The decision of Darius. - Ezr 6:1-5. At the command of Darius, search was made in the archives of the royal treasury; and in the fortress of Achmetha in Media, was found the roll in which was recorded the edict published by Cyrus, concerning the building of the temple at Jerusalem. Ezr 6:1 Search was made in the house of the books where also the treasures were deposited in Babylon. מהחתין, partic. Aphel of נחת; see Ezr 5:15. Ezr 6:2-4 "And there was found at Achmetha, in the fortress that is in the land of Media, a roll; and thus was it recorded therein." In Babylon itself the document sought for was not found;…”